Are you tired? Frazzled? Out-of-sorts? You must be a working mom! Working moms really have a rough life and I don’t mean that facetiously. I consider myself a SAHM for the most part, but I do volunteer heavily for my local Safe Kids coalition. I’m their volunteer and membership coordinator, web master, newsletter editor, and I’m an instructor on top of all that. There usually isn’t a week that goes by where I’m not emailed at least daily about something SK related or called upon to attend an event (I feel obligated to attend as many events as possible, not only to keep my skills up-to-date, but also to set a good example as volunteer coordinator and instructor). Some weeks, like this week, all of those duties assert themselves and make me wonder why I ever got involved in the first place. When I have to help teach a class, it typically takes the better part of 3-4 full days. Fortunately, we only teach 2-3 classes per year. Ah really, I shouldn’t complain; I like the people I work with at my coalition.
Every year or so, I have a contract editing position related to CPS that comes around. It’s something I can do from home, so I become a WAHM during this time. Depending on our goals for this project, it can take anywhere from 3 months to 9 months to complete the work. I just have to carve time out to do the work.
Then I blog for CarseatBlog.com. I like this gig. Darren and Kecia are great people and fun to be around. The only problem is that they are so demanding, constantly bugging me about deadlines. Like slave masters, they are. j/k!
So when I lay it all out on fake paper with fake ink, it seems like I’m not terribly busy, but when I live my life I feel like I’m running at 110%. When I pick up my kids at the end of the school day, I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing, yet I’ve been busy all day. My house hasn’t been cleaned in, oh, I don’t know how long. My vacuum? Oh, yeah, the downstairs vacuum saw light for the first time in a couple of weeks last night because the kitchen floor was so crunchy. The only thing I can barely keep up with is laundry and that’s because we need clean underwear! To give you an idea of how much this bothers me, I *am* a clean freak.
Why does it have to be this way? I know I’m not the only one feeling completely overwhelmed. Moms (and dads too!) who work full-time still have to clean their homes, feed and bathe their children, play with the pets, clean up the kitchen, clean the house, pay the bills, etc., etc., etc. Where does the time for enjoying life come in? Where does the time for taking care of oneself come in? I don’t know. I think it gets left behind and that’s why we have such an angry society today.
I was talking to a friend on the playground yesterday after school while the kids burned off some energy and she was lamenting how even though she works from her home, she still doesn’t bring in enough money and she needs to get out and find another part-time job. “Where am I supposed to find the time?” asked the mom of three, one of whom is a special needs kid. She still has to maintain the work she does from home. We both chuckled uncomfortably about how cluttered our houses have become and changed the subject to a much more jovial one of how plastic surgeons are now doing tattoos.
I think my friend and I are pretty typical: feeling like hamsters running on a running wheel, running and running, yet going nowhere. My online communities, like car-seat.org and the BabyCenter car seat boards, at least give me an outlet where I can help others and let my mind wander a bit. I don’t know if I’ve saved any lives, but I do know that my work through Safe Kids has resulted in some tightly installed car seats 😉 . And my friend and I are lucky to have flexible schedules to be able to catch our kids’ singing programs at school during the day. I think since we all get frazzled at one time or another, we should stop and enjoy a chocolate or two before jumping back into the fray.
Thanks for the kind comments, Kat :). Today I chose to take a nap before lunch instead of mopping the kitchen floor–I’m still recovering from my dh waking me yesterday at 5:15a. While my floor still is quite dirty (just toss some straw on it and it may resemble a barn floor a little too closely, lol), at least I feel better!
Heather, you at least saved Damian from injury… way back when I called Graco about the Turbobooster headrest and they told me he couldn’t use it anymore… when he was SIX.
You and everyone else on that board not only helped me realize the CSR had her head up her behind, but all the info and facts on the old bbc board were why he end up harnessed again…. even if he did outgrown that Regent so fast it made my head spin… he was safer than falling asleep and having his head on his knees.
You are why Ruthie has had ANY seat that harnesses past 40lbs and was not in a booster when she hit 40lbs.
And before that, you took time and effort to track down info (now more commonly given, to all of you who wonder where this sage knowledge came from) on what to do about Ruthie’s legs… when, even in the very roomy for legs Evenflo Triumph, she was screaming in pain, and her feet turning in and it stemming from her knees and hips had her doctors wanting them straight as much of the time as possible.
If you hadn’t found the solution and found out how far the vehicle seat could be reclined for her comfort, she would have been forward facing at 1yr old simply due to her legs.
Instead, her legs grew, the orthopedist was brought in and agreed that car trips, as long as she wasn’t in pain, were not taking up enough time to fret about her legs because she was still so young and they weren’t needing to do anything about them yet, and the growth let her fling her legs off to the side of the seat or even bend them as if she was sitting and put them on the vehicle seatback.
But if you had not bought me those months until her legs were able to do those things, she would have already been ff at 1yr old and the orthopedist wouldn’t have been asked and he wouldn’t have told me all that info about the spine and everything that made me obsessed to get the boys harnessed again.
When we had that very minor accident when Ruthie did have to be ff to fit all three kids in the one row, I shudder to think how they would have fared had Damian not been in a booster.
So you definitely have saved lives… the information you give keeps kids safer and protected.
My life is as crazy as everyone else’s but I refuse to sweat the small stuff and that goes a long way in keeping me semi-sane. I also want to add that occasionally we all have to give ourselves permission to say “no” to certain things. It’s really hard to utter that word at first and you may feel guilty the first few times you say it – but it gets easier with time. Trust me. 😉
Ditto Luv. Something just don’t get done so that we can spend time with our kids, or for ourselves. I get cranky on anything less than 6 hours of sleep. I leave my kitchen floor till it’s just too icky to walk on (& I like to be barefoot). The bathrooms only get cleaned once a week. Clothes get washed or folded or put away as time permits – laundry’s been known to move in to my family room & set up shop… About once a month I get completely cranked up by the mess & that’s when we all get together to clean up the house. & we start all over again.
As for “me” time – that’s once a week when DS is in bed, and DH is off w/ the boys. A few hours is better than nothing at all, & I get cranky when DH’s “boy time” gets cancelled. & on no-school days, when DS is at childcare all day, I skippeth out of work early & grab a massage. =D
[I]Where does the time for enjoying life come in? Where does the time for taking care of oneself come in?[/I]
It comes at the expense of other things. The kitchen doesn’t get cleaned, the laundry doesn’t get done, the house is still a mess… but at least I have time for myself and my kid. I get some sanity, and then it is back to chaos. Or sometimes it is at the expense of sleep. Sure I can live on 4 hours of sleep a night, but for how long?
I am a full time working single mom to a 5yo kindergartener. I have been a SAHM, WAHM, part time working mom, going to school mom, and now a full time working mom. I felt just as frazzled at any one of those that I did doing the other. I think we always feel like we have to get so much done, that things have to be a certain way, and that we have to keep up with the jones… but we don’t. Sit back, ignore the dishes, let the kids tear up their playroom, and take a bubblebath. You will at least get a small amount of enjoyment, and we all need that! It keeps up going.